Lesson 481, issued 5/27/19 Page 19

FICTIONAL SYMBOLISM VII -- NERO: A CONCEPT OF MAGNIFICENCE

Marc Edmund Jones

This lesson is an analysis of the structure of human rela-

tionship dramatized in Quo Vadis or Whither Goest Thou? by Henryk
Sienkiewicz. The thread of life revealed through the story is cen-
tered in Petronius, the Roman nobleman who is quite the most striking
figure of the narrative, and it is in him that the real virtues as
well as the faults of a decaying Paganism are shown. As companion of
the Emperor Nero and a poet and generally accomplished patrician, he
wields a tremendous influence, and the contrasts between the elements
of decay and strength are shown through his two mistresses during the
story’s period. Chrysothemis is high priestess of the old regime of
life characterized by cultured inaction and a flippant mockery at so-
cial values. In this element of a mad denouement of Grecian aesthet-
ics is found Poppaea Sabina or the wife of Nero as well as ruler and
evil genius that leads him to his most revolting crimes, and Tigelli-
nus or the administrator of the Emperor’s vicious impulses as climaxed
in the deliberate burning of Rome. The influence of Petronius is as
Arbiter of Elegance, and in a cold disdain of everything that might
lack superficial beauty and surface polish. The book presents a mag-
nificent canvas of banquets, excursions, games and public exhibitions.
It reveals the broad undercurrent of gross immorality, divorce, drunk-
enness in high places and cruel treatment of slaves or common people
on the slightest provocation. The deliberate play for popularity
when mass support is needed by the rulers is seen in the blood specta-
cles and glorification of a sordid bestiality to which a whole people
has been accustomed.

Petronius himself as the aesthetic observer of life lifts

himself unconsciously above the drunken magnificence of Nero’s court
despite his constant participation in the orgies, and this better part
of his nature becomes symbolized in Eunice or the slave girl who
through the purity of her love becomes his mistress and wins and holds
him to the end. Perhaps mistress gives the wrong idea to modern
ears, since her place was that of a respected wife. Although she was
a slave he raises and elevates her, freeing her and making her his le-
gal heir. In this the reader observes a real love, because it is
based on mutual sustainment or on a genuine service of the sort for
which the term sacrifice is needlessly cheap. Here is to be seen pa-
gan virtue, and it is a real virtue for the reason that it is unaccom-
panied by moral fireworks. It is pagan courage freed from the curse
of hysteria and protestation of moral motive. The physical strength
of Petronius, together with the administrative ability demonstrated by
him on prior occasions, rounds out the pleasant side of the picture
and shows that individual character is not the exclusive production of
Fictional Symbolism VII Page 20

any period, race, culture or set form of belief and understanding.

When Petronius resorts to trickery to achieve a purpose he yields to
the methods of his times, and the results are unfortunate. But in
this he errs in reality but once. He is paganism at its best, and it
is a best that is but seldom approached even in these Christian days.

Life’s reaction to the situation here dramatized is re-

vealed in the seventh principle of relational being or the fundamental
fineness of human character as already brought out in the case of the
polished and patrician Petronius. The real example of the principle
however is to be seen in the fascinating Chilon Chilonides, of whom
the worst can hardly be said and yet do justice to the real destruc-
tiveness of his role in the story. In contrast to Chilon is Glaucus,
the Christian physician whom Chilon twice wrongs beyond all belief and
attempts to wrong a third time as greatly, and who forgives him on the
three separate occasions. Chilon in playing an unscrupulous game
with no thought but self-advantage is at last caught by the sheer
weight of the goodness made manifest to him. The moment this occurs,
no matter what the inevitable cost is to be and he well suspects its
full measure, he turns in the way of his going before all the world
and meets his death with a grace matched by few of the other charac-
ters. There is that which in every man will be noble if it is given
a proper stimulation to expression, and the whole objective of philos-
ophy as well as religion properly is to draw this out of every man.
Nero and Petronius are no less consistent, as has already been brought
out in the latter’s case. Behind the madness of Bronzebeard or Nero
was the desire to achieve magnificence or to leave an enduring mark of
beauty in the history of man. That he was shortsighted is an indict-
ment of the times and not of the Emperor. No less in his case than
in that of Crispus, or the fanatic who carried Christianity to the
same bitter extreme that Nero carried the debauchery which to the Em-
peror alone indicated personal excellence, did this symbol of magnifi-
cence fail if actually not to fail at all. Rome was rebuilt, and
Christianity was given a foundation upon bigotry that passed and was
forgotten in the light of the enduring results of these passion-torn
days.

In Peter the apostle and Paul of Tarsus is seen again the

fundamental worthiness of human character. As the spirit of Jesus
asked Peter where he was going and as Peter turned and built enduring-
ly, and as this same drama took place a full generation earlier for
Paul on the road to Damascus, so to every man is sounded recurrently
the challenge to his better or his real self. And sooner or later he
responds and turns to his genuine life work.

The personal reaction to the thread of life here uncovered

is revealed in the seventh allegory or the invincibility of faith.
Lygia or Calina as a hostage princess of the barbarians is the figure
Fictional Symbolism VII Page 21

of Christian invulnerability, and the heroine of the story. Around

Lygia is painted the peaceful environment of a home built on more than
a lust for power, preferment and wealth. Aulus Plautinus, the old
veteran of the British wars, with his wife Pomponia, has provided
Lygia with the environment that brings out her fragile beauty to its
full in both body and character. Here is a peace that every human
soul may know, for indeed even in the palace of Nero is the Christian
Acte, or his former mistress, who still loves this red-bearded tyrant
as one might cherish a miswilled boy and who although discarded con-
tinues to hold his respect. Marcus Vinicius is hero of the story from
a romantic point of view, and it is the character of Marcus which is
so strangely and marvelously molded by the press of events in the sto-
ry. In the dramatizing of strength here as of character in the proud
young patrician who is cruel with the carelessness of Roman magnifi-
cence there is painted the marvelous figure of the Lygian giant called
Ursus or Lygia’s bear. Physically Ursus is softened, and Marcus is
brought to a sense of values mentally and within. The easy conquest
of the gladiator, Creto, by Ursus, and the later spectacular mastery
of the bull in the arena by Ursus with the rescue of Lygia and the
preservation of the lives of the lovers thereby, provides much of the
warp of the splendid fabric Sienkiewicz has given the world. Pagan
merit brought death to Petronius and Christian faith brought life to
Marcus and Lygia.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND APPLICATION

(1) How are different facets of the concept of magnificence portrayed

on the splendid canvas of this story? How may the seeker reduce
them to simple terms and make them meaningful in today’s society?
(2) What constitutes the strong contrast between pagan and Christian
virtues? With what effect?
(3) What can you say of the consistency of Petronius and Nero in
their symbolization of the concept of magnificence?
(4) How does Lygia portray the seventh allegory?
(5) How is strength dramatized, here and in life generally?
(6) What makes a book popular? What makes it live? Why do you
think this story was chosen to symbolize a concept for the seek-
er’s use? What fundamental, overall purpose has been exempli-
fied through this lesson?
Lesson 482, issued 6/3/19 Page 22

FICTIONAL SYMBOLISM VIII -- LAURIE: A CONCEPT OF WHOLESOMENESS

Marc Edmund Jones

This lesson is an analysis of the structure of human rela-

tionship dramatized in Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott. The thread
of life revealed through the story is centered in Jo or Josephine, the
downright young lady who is 15 as the story opens and who somehow re-
mains different and apart from her three sisters and at the same time
influences them to a degree that draws the nucleation of events almost
wholly to herself. The portrait suggests itself as somewhat autobio-
graphical. Meg or Margaret is the older sister, one year the senior
of Jo and quite the embodiment of dignity. Truly Meg’s would-be ele-
gance is a high note of the story. The little girl who permits her-
self to be dressed up in borrowed finery and ceases to be her own self
in the doll that even three-quarters of a century ago or the period of
the story excited a tinge of pity in the onlooker. The value of Lit-
tle Women in literature, despite its hopelessly old-fashioned charac-
ter now, is in the simplicity and eternal worth of the values it pre-
sents. These today are largely overshadowed by a mass sophistication
which is no more than a mode that will pass, but they are safely
cloistered in many a heart and one loves these little citizens for
their charming reminder of this fact. It is Jo who brings Laurie in-
to the picture and gives the girls a near touch to luxury they cannot
know in their own straitened circumstances. They do not and cannot
suspect that the lonely heart of the boy of not quite Jo’s age gains
far more in the self-actuated consciousness of the Marches than his
own servants and wealth can give him. In the contact between the two
families is a perfect interchange after all. Therefore it is just
and proper that the Laurences should give in John Brooks, the tutor of
Laurie, the kind lover who offers Meg a love that butterfly-
proclivities can endanger but not destroy.

Beth who is 13 at the opening is the frail or timid member

of the family. She is possessed of little real will to live, and so
is the one of the four girls who departs from the visible scene of
things before a climax is reached. Perhaps her delicacy of soul jus-
tifies itself in the melting of the heart of Laurie’s grandfather, and
in the manner in which she softens boyish and awkward Jo. By the
natural development of things it is warm-hearted Josephine who awakens
the love of Laurie, but between these two there is too much free pas-
sion and a match would be wholly unsuitable as Jo later comes to real-
ize when hers is the hard task of putting aside the wholesome youth
who has so stirred her. Beth, to whom Jo is passionately devoted, is
the means to the outworking. Jo believes that Beth has come to love
Laurie, and she goes to New York hoping that a romance may thus be
fostered. But it is the lot of Beth to die and to seek in other
Fictional Symbolism VIII Page 23

realms that ethereal delicacy which alone can sustain her. It is the
lot of Jo and Laurie to know much bitter and deep blackness. Here
indeed is the night through which only real character may come through
cleanly.

Amy is the trailing member of the family. She is a year

the junior of Beth, and the protégé of Meg as her immediate senior is
the favorite of Jo. Amy is almost spoiled and is much like Meg in
her intense desire for the fineries of life, and she is the one who
must be bribed by the older girls in one way or another as by the
promise of a weekly ride with Laurie, etc. Yet it is this youngster
who draws the trip to Europe, thanks to Jo’s outspoken comments which
were only designed after all to shield that out-at-the-elbow lady’s
sensitiveness. And from the time her favorite treasure or the book
is burned, and Amy falls through the ice, Jo has much bitterness to
swallow. Eventually however the real romance between Amy and Laurie
springs into being, and Jo’s efforts are properly rewarded.

Life’s reaction to the situation here dramatized is made

manifest in the eighth principle of relational being, or the fact that
happiness is self-sustainment. Aunt March provides the destructive
picture with her sharp tongue and her malicious surety that nothing
will work out properly for her little nieces. When neither Meg nor
Jo get Laurie, the old lady wonders just what it can possibly be all
about. The same adverse picture is presented in the character of Old
Mr. Laurence and his love for his grandson after a prior and fatal
disapproval of the marriage of Laurie’s father to the mother of the
boy. Indeed, until Jo takes it into her hands to interfere, Laurie
is being soul starved by the tactics of his grandfather and truly is
wilting away. A similar picture of destructive or transient happi-
ness is given in the families of the Kings and the Moffats. The con-
structive picture is centered in Mr. March, the father of the four
girls, with his genuine lack of worldly foresight. Away fighting for
his country as a chaplain since this was the only way he can enlist,
he finds a real happiness in service. While he has sacrificed all
his worldly interests and plunged his loved ones into a measure of
poverty, yet he has only succeeded in enhancing their real possessions
and consequently their happiness. Professor Bhaer, with his Tina and
a gentle encompassing consciousness, again reveals the nature of real
happiness as a quality independent of circumstances or fortune, of age
or condition of body, or of mind and temperament. Even Old Hannah in
the home of the Marches sings the same song of an enduring content
built on and sustained through a genuine self-appreciation.

The personal reaction to the thread of life here uncovered

is brought out in the eighth allegory or the shaping of character.
Theodore or Laurie Laurence when he is discovered by Jo is a lonesome
lad gradually going to seed. The wholesome influence of the four un-
sophisticated March girls becomes his salvation without any touch of
Fictional Symbolism VIII Page 24

effeminization in the process and in the post office established by

the youngsters at the hedge separating the two yards and in the many
games and enterprises the sensitive real boy is gradually shaped into
a semblance of manhood. Here is no moralizing, and no pouring of the
essence of the soul into the patented molds of this or that ready-made
character. The tribe of youngsters is permitted to express itself
and trusted to be true to itself in an environment where there is no
conflict between talk or theory and inherent desire. The result can-
not be other than wholesomeness. The shaping of Jo herself is no
less interesting, since this takes place in an alien situation or Mrs.
Kirke’s boarding house in New York. Here the young lady, away from
all accustomed influence, fights her inner battle and learns her own
lessons. Because of her own consciousness she draws to her not the
superficial elements of the big city but rather the same wholesomeness
of her own home such as is to be found by anyone who cares to open his
eyes to it in almost any section of this wide universe. In her writ-
ing, its success and the various reactions it brings, she learns moral
responsibility. Through Professor Bhaer in particular she gains ap-
preciation for the simple values of life. Perhaps some will say that
Jo gained the least of the sisters, but her cup remained truly full
and her heart was satisfied to bursting.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND APPLICATION

(1) What ensures that values shall have eternal worth? How is this
symbolized here?
(2) Why do values seem less evident today?
(3) How are the contrasting pictures of real and transient happiness
made meaningful to the aspirant by this story?
(4) How is the shaping of character presented through the relations
of Laurie and the Marches? Why is this an allegory?
(5) How is Jo’s experience to be compared with that of her sisters
from the point of view of its enduringness and worth?
(6) What makes a book popular? What makes it live? Why do you
think this story was chosen to symbolize a concept for the seek-
er’s use? What fundamental, overall purpose has been exempli-
fied through this lesson?
Lesson 483, issued 6/10/19 Page 25

FICTIONAL SYMBOLISM IX -- ARTHUR: A CONCEPT OF PURPOSE

Marc Edmund Jones

This lesson is an analysis of the structure of human rela-

tionship dramatized in The Gadfly by Ethel Lilian Voynich. The
thread of life revealed through the story is centered in Canon Lorenzo
Montanelli as a marvelously drawn representative of the ecclesiastical
hierarchies and one who later is the bishop beloved of all Italy. In
contrast with Montanelli are the Burtons, James and Julia or the uncle
and aunt of the story’s hero and the mother and supposed father of the
boy who neither make any actual appearance in the narrative. The
Burtons, and the English traders and their families who are temporary
colonists of a fashion in this Papal land, bring about the conflict
between Protestant and Catholic prejudices and provide the foundation
of the book as one of the most powerful ever written in any language.
The story is not deliberate anti-Popery propaganda, since the
Protestants are but little less spared. If the Apostolic Succession
is pilloried its worship is at least made warm and rich in sympathy
whereas Protestantism is left as cold as the ice that it all too fre-
quently becomes. By the same token The Gadfly cannot be said to be a
book written against all religion, although the announced intention of
its stammering hero is the destruction of all priestcraft. In the
essential humanness of the narrative lies its power, and where else is
there so powerful a motif as a hopeless love of father and son born of
the very violation of the standards that seek to destroy it? Mon-
tanelli in his own sin gains the tolerance of a saint, and at the end
repudiates the structure that has made his expiation possible. Ar-
thur Burton who later is the Gadfly unwittingly in his love for his
tutor reaches out to embrace in his heart the father that for his con-
ception was untrue to God. There is in all this the solutionless
play of human passions that leads after all but to the greater racial
service and gives birth now and then to that cosmic purpose which for
the moment may indeed seem to be no more than illegitimate offspring
without hope of happiness.

In Father Cardi as the spy, and in the violation of the

confessional, is seen the frailty of all purely human institutions.
Whether it be government or church, or a business or social structure,
there is no organization so well grounded or properly intrenched that
it cannot become the agency for deliberate oppression. Human safety
forever lies in human purpose, or in the goal and vision that may be
implanted from generation to generation in the mass of human hearts.
Today’s liberator is tomorrow’s tyrant, and the attention of spiritual
aspirants must be directed therefore not to things but to the actual
life or living direction inherent in each. The development of pur-
pose is here shaped in the narrative by the battle between the agents
Fictional Symbolism IX Page 26

of the church and the Austrians on the one side and the revolutionar-
ies on the other. Carlo Bini as an organizer of the revolutionaries
is no less an awakening element in the young man’s life than Father
Cardi. The sacrifice of Arthur by Montanelli in an intent to save
him and of course no more than a passive acquiescence actually creates
the Gadfly.

Felice Rivarez, as Arthur is known on his return from South

America, becomes in The Gadfly the striking figure of retribution that
dominates the story. His enmity to the church is effectual because
the church first of all as reactionary in realms of spirit makes it-
self the cat’s-paw of the reactionary elements in the state and be-
cause secondly he is dominated by a purpose to which life or death or
personal love or hatred or all other things by comparison are com-
pletely unimportant. As the Spanish pilgrim, Diego, he thus carries
off a disguise with a perfection born of its very foolhardiness, and
in his moves he is well-nigh irresistible.

Life’s reaction to the situation here dramatized is made

manifest in the ninth principle of relational being, or the urge to
live. For Arthur this is at first supplied in the natural affec-
tions, centering to some extent in Montanelli but at the beginning al-
most wholly attached to Jennifer Warren or Gemma as she is called
throughout the book or Jim as the affectionate term given her by Ar-
thur and some of her intimates. Gemma’s love for Arthur is genuine
despite the fact it has no expression, and it is truly his first in-
spiration. He is stirred by jealousy awakened because of her associ-
ation with Giovanni Bolla of the young revolutionaries, but even when
she becomes Madame Bolla in the belief Arthur is drowned her heart re-
mains with the English boy. It is when she misunderstands Arthur at
the time he is betrayed in the confessional and strikes him, to which
is to be added suddenly the knowledge that Montanelli and not one of
the Burtons is his real father, that Arthur’s house of cards falls and
that he leaves every evidence of suicide and escapes to South America.
Madame Zita Reni, the gypsy and the mistress of the Gadfly, character-
izes the second and final period in his life. Now he is dominated by
purpose, and affectional ties are pure matters of convenience.
Afraid at times to be alone, he carries this girl with him and awakens
her love but he has naught but bitterness to give. And when she
leaves him, she adds to the bitterness by reminding him of this fact
silently. The cruelty of life to Arthur in South America is a true
picture of a state of civilization that is not new to the student who
is to any degree well-read but given strange and new dramatic force by
Mrs. Voynich. The poker of the Lascar or East Indian, the cruelty of
the negro peons to whom he acts as a fag, and the tortures inflicted
on him when his deformities create a role for him in a traveling vari-
ety show are all the things that create purpose. When Duprez’s expe-
dition finds him and employs him as interpreter he gains
Fictional Symbolism IX Page 27

the chance for which alone he had been willing to continue to live,
and he returns to Europe to accomplish this for the major part.

The personal reaction to the thread of life here uncovered

is brought out in the ninth allegory or sacrificial death. Among the
revolutionaries there is Martini who is not altogether unactuated by
love for Gemma in volunteering for self-sacrifice to save the Gadfly
whose value presumably is greater, but the Gadfly so narrowly saved
from escape by his own fever-wracked weakness is enabled to die for
himself and his cause and to influence all minds and hearts everywhere
as had not been his lot in life. Gruesome as the execution scene is,
it carries the power of a message and a purpose larger than these rel-
atively petty and minor details. The climax on Corpus Domini or Cor-
pus Christi as the Thursday after Trinity Sunday centers in the dilem-
ma of the bishop, who now knows he is the father of the Gadfly and
with whom the Gadfly is emotionally reconciled as he is by letter with
Gemma and who has so far forbidden a court martial. If the Gadfly
lives, then the feast will mark Martini’s sacrifice and probably the
Gadfly’s rescue as the authorities know though not in detail. Mon-
tanelli has never known how to steel himself to a purpose and in his
softness he symbolizes the average man, and he sacrifices the Gadfly
to save bloodshed and in doing so unwittingly sacrifices himself and
at the same time answers the question of empty churches and an empty
faith.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND APPLICATION

(1) What gives this story its great power? Why should it have mean-
ing to the seeker?
(2) How may we help human institutions fulfill the purpose for which
they were created rather than become agencies of oppression?
(3) Why is there such emphasis on retribution? From what source
does it gain its power? What is the symbolism of the gadfly?
How does it come into being in the story?
(4) How does Arthur symbolize the urge to live? Through what stages
is this manifested?
(5) Of what is sacrificial death an allegory? Why is one who expe-
riences this rather than anyone else?
(6) What makes a book popular? What makes it live? Why do you
think this story was chosen to symbolize a concept for the seek-
er’s use? What fundamental, overall purpose has been exempli-
fied through this lesson?
Lesson 484, issued 6/17/19 Page 28

FICTIONAL SYMBOLISM X -- HAWKEYE: A CONCEPT OF ALERTNESS

Marc Edmund Jones

This lesson is an analysis of the structure of human rela-

tionship dramatized in The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore
Cooper. The thread of life revealed through the story is centered in
Uncas or Le Cerf Agile and the last of the Mohicans. The plot is
very loosely constructed and the book is little more than a string of
incidents more or less alike in nature and spun out with the joyous
abandon of a movie thriller. As a piece of writing its significance
is the love it has commanded from generations of American readers, and
this is based upon the human traits embodied in the characters even
though in considerable violence to historical and racial probabili-
ties. Uncas names the volume and dominates the action through his
fealty to his father and family traditions as well as through the af-
fection he commands from Hawkeye and the bitter rivalry he inspires in
Magua. In the figure of Chingachgook, the father of Uncas, the au-
thor does his best work as far as interpreting the civilized side of
the Indian is concerned. Old Chingachgook is known as Le Gros Ser-
pent and he keeps a dignified and skillful place in the action of the
story. The Delawares as the tribe to which the Mohicans are related
reveal in their century-old sage, Tamenund, the voice of Indian tradi-
tion and integrity. The virtues of these red-skinned Americans are
well painted by the author, as well as their vices. Although declin-
ing before the white man they keep a real dignity, and their obedience
to their own laws and their sense of personal integrity is not wholly
overshadowed by their naive savagery. Because it takes different
form it is quite easy to see through these Indians the mixture of good
and bad inherent in every man.

Hawkeye or Leatherstocking or Natty Bumppo as he otherwise

appears in Cooper’s tales is the famous scout probably suggested by
Nathaniel Boone, and in this book, he is known as La Longue Carabine.
Here is the true figure of the pioneer or the man who owes his life
and well-being entirely to his personal ability to interpret the signs
about him, and who but for his constant alertness would meet a speedy
death. In contrast with him is Major Munroe as representing the
heavier and unintelligent advance of the whites into the wilderness of
the new continent to conquer by sheer weight of numbers and resources
but at the price of many massacres. Hawkeye displays the virtues of
the scouts in a willingness to recognize in the Indian a cultured and
human individual, and to deal with him as a man and a responsible be-
ing with rights potentially equal to those of the white invaders.
Not the flowing stream of later colonization won the New World, but
the bravery and courage of the pioneers who explored the country and
brought back colorful accounts to stimulate sluggish imaginations and
Fictional Symbolism X Page 29

start the greater stream to flowing. Here is the function of every

pioneer even in spiritual and higher realms.

Magua or Le Renard Subtil is the Huron heavy villain of the

narrative, and as Uncas represents the best of Indian nature so this
other young brave is used to picture the worst. Naturally in the
best tradition of earlier historical fictionizations those Indians al-
lied with the country’s enemy or France must be pictured at their
worst. Even the Delawares are shown as puppets in the hands of Magua
and Uncas. It is in odd contrast with the black picture of the vi-
cious and treacherous Hurons therefore that Magua is shown infatuated
by the daughter of Major Munroe. As a bit of characterization he is
a figure lifted from the melodramatic stage of a past generation. He
pursues the poor girl endlessly as she musters the courage to defy
him, yet in the very poorness of the drawing Magua serves admirably to
portray far better than a truer picture the degeneration of the Indi-
ans or any of the so-called inferior races through contact with the
unscrupulously purposeful white race.

Life’s reaction to the situation here dramatized is made

manifest in the tenth principle of relational being or life’s eternal
and constant self-purification. Perhaps racial prejudice more than
any other factor in evolution has both hindered and stimulated the
growth of man to his divine estate. Cora Munroe because of her mixed
or inferior blood as a quadroon symbolizes the bridge between races.
It is she who attracts both Uncas and Magua and so provides the trian-
gle on which the emotional action of the narrative hinges. This is
possible because she provides through her racial chemistry an instinc-
tive sympathy lacking in the prouder white. The student is not to
understand here that white blood is superior because it is white but
because it is the blood that came to dominate the globe. Its respon-
sibility is acquired and so neither inherent nor guaranteed in perpe-
tuity. It is true that dominant racial streams tend to bleach out to
white, but the reference here is to the block of egos that now are
white and not to their whiteness. As a whole the race constantly pu-
rifies itself, exactly as the blood in any individual tends towards
self-purification. Therefore the triangle of Cora-Uncas-Magua moves
inevitably to its climax in tragedy. Alice Munroe symbolizes the
purer blood stream and so the more normal and proper strain of ro-
mance. Between Major Duncan Heyward and herself there is a success-
ful match and a happy denouement, exactly as there was a fortunate
outcome of the love-affair between Major Munroe and the girl at home
in England who waited for him through the long empty years and then
became the mother of Alice. A realization of the double stream of
tendency in all life as here illustrated will be of value to every as-
pirant. Where the factors of association are normal and conventional
there is possible a placid and enduring personal happiness. This
sustains the race and cultures its standards of purity as its very
foundation but does not advance it a whit on the path of evolution.
Fictional Symbolism X Page 30

But where there is a miscegenation or race mixture or mixing of any of

the factors of being as in and through all pioneer work, there is fun-
damental and essential progress. This gives more personal unhappi-
ness but yields godlike alertness and contributes to new forms of ex-
pression. It cultures a tolerant divinity that embraces all diver-
gence constructively.

The personal reaction to the thread of life here uncovered

is brought out in the tenth allegory or the genius of differentiation
or divergence in experience factors. Illustrated by the whole book
and by the points brought out immediately above the best expression of
the process is to be seen in the character of David Gamut. Since he
is regarded as unbalanced, he is given the liberty of the various In-
dian camps because the redskins truly see here the conquest of matter
by pure spirit. The close relationship between genius and insanity
has been recognized since the most primeval times, and the fact of
this recognition is proof of the inherent wisdom of all men and so
even savages. David is respected because he is different. Here
then is the basis of the sorcery of the Indians. The bear disguise,
and the whole of their superstitions, may be seen to be founded on the
value of difference or differentiation. Civilization may learn then
that it will endure as it succeeds in culturing difference for its own
stimulation, even as it outwardly sustains itself by its normality or
resistance to modifying factors.

SUGGESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND APPLICATION

(1) Why has this story been popular for all these years? How are
the Indians of this story typical of any man?
(2) Why is the pioneer as represented by Hawkeye a worthy type to em-
ulate? What purpose is served through the characterization of
Magua?
(3) How may we learn to build a bridge between races in ways other
than that typified by Cora Munroe? How does life purify itself?
Why should it do this?
(4) What are the two strains of romance in the story? How are they
to be characterized and compared? What is their deeper signifi-
cance?
(5) What is the tenth allegory? By whom is it portrayed? What may
we learn from it?
(6) What makes a book popular? What makes it live? Why do you
think this story was chosen to symbolize a concept for the seek-
er’s use? What fundamental or overall purpose has been exempli-
fied through this lesson?